The present invention relates to a remote surgery supporting system and a method thereof, and more particularly, it relates to a remote surgery supporting system and a method which is suitable for supporting one or more surgical operators in performing a surgical treatment on the brain, nervous system, eyeballs or the like by remote-controlling surgical tools or therapeutic instruments using a manipulator having a high degree of freedom.
Hitherto, as a system for performing an operation on the cranial nerve or the like while observing data of measuring instruments which are visually reconstructed, there has been known a magnetic resonance monitoring treatment system by which the position of a catheter is automatically controlled by a positioning mechanism when a surgical operator inputs a position and instructs of the catheter while observing image MRI produced by as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Hei. 4-53533, for example.
Further, as a system for cerebral surgical works, there has been a puncturing manipulator for stereotaxy, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Hei. 3-121064, for example. As a system for performing surgery by way of remote control, there has been a system having a remote-controlled surgical manipulator in a double-piped probe, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. Hei. 4-1146097, for example.
Further, there has been known a micro-handling system constructed so as to allocate degrees of freedom to turning and translation to a manipulator and a stage as disclosed in a collection of papers pp. 693-696 of the Symposium on Robotics Mechatoronics in 1993, The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers.
The system described in the above-mentioned Laid-open No. Hei. 4-53533 is supposed to be used for treatment mainly by means of a catheter and it is difficult to perform with it an operation which requires a direct manipulation of a diseased part with a highly sophisticated technical skill, such as removal of a tumor adhering on a blood capillary or nerve.
Furthermore, because an ultrasonic motor (piezoelectric element) is used for an actuator to operate in a static magnetic field, it is difficult to increase the compliance to enable treating of soft tissues.
It is also incomplete more or less in terms of the mode for supporting data because the modality thereof is only magnetic resonance, so that it is hard to understand changes in a shape of a cranial bone when a craniotomy is performed, and the measured contents only show shapes and no functional measurement is implemented and the measured and displayed contents show a 2-dimensional tomographic image which is not intuitional.
The system described in the above-mentioned Patent Laid-open No. Hei. 3-121064 is used for stereotaxy and is capable of performing only puncturing. However, there are many troubles of the cranial nerve which cannot be surgically treated well only by puncturing and which require a plurality of mechanisms having a greater degree of freedom in order to manipulate tissues of a diseased part. The above-mentioned system is unable to deal with such a case. Further, the disclosure describes nothing about other parts for controlling the puncturing manipulator.
The system disclosed in the above-mentioned Patent Laid-open No. Hei. 4-146097 isolates the surgical operator completely from the patient, so that there will be difficulty in responding to an emergency and even if possible, it may be too late.
The system described in the collection of papers of the Symposium on Robotics Mechatoronics in 1993, The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, is constructed so that the work cannot be started unless an object is placed on the stage and is not suitable for actual surgical works.
Further, in all the examples described above, the master manipulator and the slave manipulator correspond in a relation of one-to-one to the end and no consideration is given to the enhancement of works and simplification of control attained by controlling a plurality of slave manipulators by one master manipulator and to the training function attained by controlling one slave manipulator by a plurality of master manipulators.
Still further all the known examples described above suppose tacitly that one surgical operator manipulates the system and describe nothing about a joint surgical work function performed by a plurality of surgical operators, the manipulation of one slave manipulator by a number of master manipulators, and the training function thereof.
In the known examples described above, the data has been obtained only for the use of the surgical operator at the end regardless of whether it occurs before or during the operation.
Furthermore, there is no function of giving a surgical simulation and so there could be no benefit from the result regardless whether the object of the surgery is an actual dummy vital tissue or a model in a computer.